10 Awesome Facts About Sleep Everyone Should Know

Sleep isn’t something that many people really think about, unless they’re fantasizing about getting some at the end of a long day. Sleep is one of the most important things that the human body does though, because it plays such an important role in health and well-being. With modern life being so heavily influenced by technology, as well as all of the stressful factors that play into our day-to-day lives, sleep is becoming less and less of a priority to people, but it shouldn’t be. This list is a compilation of ten really important and interesting facts about sleep that everyone should know.

No Sleep Linked To Obesity

The less sleep a person has, the more likely they are to have big appetites. The reason for this is that when a person lacks sleep, their leptin levels fall, resulting in an increase in appetite.

Shift Work Is Bad For You

Studies have proven that people who subject themselves to shift work are more likely to develop cardiovascular or gastrointestinal diseases.

Deadly Insomnia

Insomnia, for most people, is an incredibly frustrating condition, but it isn’t lethal. There is a type of insomnia, called fatal familial insomnia, that has caused the death of 78 people.

Sleepy Cats

Cats sleep for over seventy percent of their lives.

Sex Dreams

Despite popular belief, a 2007 study actually proved that men and women both dream about sex basically the same amount.

Longest Period Without Sleep

Randy Gardner is the record holder for the longest documented period without sleep. He stayed awake for 264.4 hours (11 days and 24 minutes).

Falling Backwards

In the movie Inception, they make a claim that if you’re in a bad dream, just “fall backwards” and it will wake you up. This has actually been sort of proven to work. It might not wake you up, but it will at least take you out of the unpleasant dream setting you were in.

Dream People

Many people claim to have dreams about people they’ve never met, but it’s actually impossible to have dreams about a face or a place that you’ve never seen.

Babies Are Bad For Sleep

Any parent can tell you that they lose a lot of sleep the first year of having a child, but most people don’t realize how much. New parents lose anywhere from 450-700 hours of sleep during their child’s first year of life.

Tired Peaks

Tiredness peaks twice a day according to scientists. Those two times are 2:00 in the morning, and 2:00 in the afternoon. This explains why everyone enjoys an afternoon nap!